Horton Hears a Who! is on HBO, and every time it comes on, I am reminded of this review for the Cat in a Hat a few years back:
If you’re hankering for a movie about an awkward yet lovable “outsider” type who wanders into a pastel mock-up of Middle America and cajoles the straights to get saucy, you’re in luck. It’s called Edward Scissorhands, and it’s been available on video for years. Renting it will absolve you of having to endure Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, which is, in essence, Edward with a queasy mean streak, no concept of pacing apart from “faster,” and such a remarkable rift between its charming source material and its heinous cinematic realization that the producers may as well have skipped the hassle of securing licensing rights and simply called this mess Mike Myers: Asshole in Fur.
I’m a big fan of funny but scathing movie reviews. Tim F. sends me some good ones from time to time, but it is never enough.
br
Have you seen this review of the new Transformers movie? It almost convinced to me to go see this film. Almost.
brent
Do you mean you are reminded because they are both based on Dr. Seuss books or because they are of similar quality? I haven’t seen either myself so I am curious.
John Cole
@brent: Seuss.
Horton is actually ok.
Punchy
WTF is going on with this Steve McNair story? He’s 36, married with 4 kids, yet (according to the po’leece) he was “dating” this….TWENTY year old, buying her cars and smoking weed together?
Come on….I know I’m supposed to feel bad for the guy, but a philandering, near-pedophilic, drug-abusing adulterer? DAMN……
John Cole
@Punchy: Slow down.
Twenty is “near-pedophilic?” Way to show you have no idea what pedophilia is.
lemma
did punchy’s intended say yes?
Robertdsc-iphone
Edward Scissorhands is very good, if a bit dark.
JK
Which event will happen first?
1) Mark Sanford delivers his resignation speech
OR
2) The MSM or blogosphere discovers the real reason behind Palin’s decision to resign
SiubhanDuinne
I just want to thank whomever-it-was in whatever-it-was thread (whenever-it-was) for recommending “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” by Tom Standage. Bought it yesterday, started it last night (between the fireworks), and finished it today (between laundry, BJ, and Wimbledon). What a fascinating book! I can’t remember who mentioned it, but thanks!!
JenJen
Well, I certainly hope you didn’t miss Roger Ebert’s review of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, then!
A small taste:
Punchy
@John Cole: Yup. Sorry. My bad. It’s totally normal for a 36 year old to date 20 year olds. And smoke dope with them.
Nothing twisted about that at all. Nope.
brent
@Punchy:
Like John said, twenty is neither pedophilic or near pedophilic. A twenty year old woman is not a child by any reasonable definition of the term.
As to whether or not you should feel bad, I think that is entirely up to you but I for one, am generally inclined to feel bad for human beings when they die because they are human beings, not because I assume they are innocent of such tremendously rare immoral acts as smoking weed or disregarding their wedding vows.
brent
It’s totally normal for a 36 year old to date 20 year olds.
So now the reason not to feel badly for a 36 year old man being gunned down is not that he was “near pedophilic” but that what he was doing may not have been “totally normal?” Seriously?
jl
I don’t even think 20 yrs old is near-pedophiliac.
Being married with children makes it bad enough regardless of age. Throwing away money on cars makes it worse, when you have a family.
The weed and 20 year old is more like innocent details in the big scheme of things.
Whatever the story turns out to be, it is tragic.
But, if people would carry on this type of affair across the equator on another continent, on the gummint dime, and be in mindless soul-mate love far far away, things like this would happen less often. We should all keep that in mind when doing our planning.
Problem for me is, how do I manage to get such a thing going on the gummint dime? I have no angle there.
Punchy
@lemma: Yes, she did. And apparently she was quite smitten by the manner by which I did it, because she felt it important to tell everyone the story, one person at a time. I’ve now heard her tell it over a dozen times, and it’s interesting how little bits of the story change each time.
Now the wedding bullsh#t starts. I failed to realize what a headache that is, and am beginning to understand by others here (TOS, Krista, etc.) just did the shotgun-style nuptials.
jl
@Punchy: Well, IMHO opinion, it is pretty normal for famous men to chase and catch younger women and have fun with them. Puritans may not agree with it, but in certain circles it is considered normal behavior.
Comrade Kevin
For scathing and funny reviews, you should check out Roger Ebert’s I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and Your Movie Sucks. In the latter, he tears Rob Schneider a new one, really nails him.
Punchy
@brent: I do feel bad for this guy. Straight up. However, my point was that the sorrow is tempered by the fact that he was apparently cheating on his wife, and his crazy ways may have lead to this death, which ended up also fucking up his kids’ lives.
I’m really not trying to own this thread, I promise.
gbear
For me? Why, thank you!
That’s what makes ‘The Fifty Worst Films of All Time’ and ‘The Golden Turkey Awards’ By Harry and Michael Medved such incredibly fun reads. It’s hard to imagine what happened to Michael Medved to turn him into such a sourpuss. Maybe Harry was the only one with a sense of humor.
LD50
@Punchy:
The point is, whatever it is, it for sure ain’t pedophilia.
inkadu
John – I’m new to the bestiary, but one does one cat have a bell and the other does not? I am going to assume it’s that the belled cat either brings home mice or attacks morning wood.
Reading list – Stealing things online has gotten me reading comic books again. I’m reading “Preacher” right now, which is a brilliant and stars a loud-mouthed preacher. Broder would like it.
I would raise my eyebrow at a 36-year-old dating a 20-year-old, but I wouldn’t make much of a fuss.
Comrade Stuck
Think I’ll que up Das Boot tonight. Have never watched more the 10 minutes of it at one sitting. then only a couple times. I think it’s like 4 or 5 hours long though. The International arrives tomorrow. Anything with Clive Owen in it is usually good, even if it’s bad. And Naomi Watts is always easy to watch, though The Ring creeped me out bigtime.
JenJen
@inkadu:
Oh, dear. That last part, does this actually happen?
spudvol
@Comrade Stuck: Save yourself 4 hours and just watch the last 5 minutes of Das Boot.
lemma
punchy congratulations – as someone who got married at a very young 24 in 1984 best wishes. At 51 after being with the same man for 17 years I’ll opt for a civil union.
John Cole
@inkadu: Not my cats. Hopefully the owner will show up and explain.
@JenJen: I hope not.
Re: McNair and Punchy- of course chetaing on your wide with anyone is wrong, but it is just stupid to call ANYONE sleeping with a 20 year old woman “pedophilia.”
LD50
@Comrade Stuck:
Make sure you rent the full-length LONG version. It’s mind-boggling.
OGB
Remembering that Peets coffee is the unofficial beverage of Balloon Juice, I thought you should know they just started selling French Roast on Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Peets-Coffee-Tea-French-Ground/dp/B0024KIKKG/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=grocery&qid=1246832974&sr=1-12. Link it up on the ad bar, and watch the $$$ pour in.
jl
@OGB: Thanks for the heads up, but a Peets French roast is probably a little too strong for me. I’ll go with the kerosene and a touch of diesel.
Charon
@Comrade Kevin:
For anyone interested, the title of the first Ebert book comes from this review of North. It’s so scathing that Richard Belzer read it verbatim when roasting Rob Reiner.
Ann B. Nonymous
Speaking of Edward, this would have made one of the greatest Saturday Night Live skits of all time.
brent
@Punchy:
Straight up. However, my point was that the sorrow is tempered by the fact that he was apparently cheating on his wife, and his crazy ways may have lead to this death, which ended up also fucking up his kids’ lives.
Okay, I get that. Fair enough. I guess my point is more that a wealthy man in his mid 30s dating a younger woman and smoking weed doesn’t strike me as particularly crazy behavior. Its obviously not ideal moral behavior but the guy was not engaged in something akin to drug smuggling or spree killing. He was a pretty much a standard issue wealthy guy committing a few pretty common vices. I don’t think any of it rises to the level of “he brought it on himself” not that you were saying that exactly. There are probably millions of individuals committing one or another of these particular sins right now and very few of them will be punished for it by death.
Punchy
@LD50: Please show me where I said it was.
Baseballgirl
Here is a quick movie recommendation: if “Anvil-The Story of Anvil” is playing anywhere near you, go see it.
It does not matter whether you’ve ever heard of them or if you consider yourself a metal fan. It is a movie about friendship and family. It’s about commitment and faith and the definition of success. I laughed, I cried and I was inspired.
You won’t regret it.
skippy
@comrade suck: forget the international. boring, confusing, uninvolving. das boot was actually much better. we just saw it on netflix.
as to funny scathing movie reviews, here’s one from pajiba for epic movie, which i think can be used to register hatred for any movie:
inkadu
@JenJen: I had a kitten who would attack anything that moved under a sheet, and would attack any swinging round objects… it was a dangerous time in my life where I learned the value of caution, restraint, and full situational awareness.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Punchy: Christ Punchy, ya trying to make me feel bad about my teenie porn collection?
Fucker.
inkadu
@Charon: Here’s a clip of Eberts review of North:
It reminds of Bloom County’s Opus’ first review as a movie critic:
Hey, there’s a whole web page devoted to negative movie reviews.
Punchy
@inkadu: there are days when I wish I never turned on my computer. this is one of those days.
Edit: and i cant even link to the correct commenter (JSF)….
Comrade Stuck
This why the letter T is so important for me self esteem/
LD50
@Just Some Fuckhead:
We’re all friends here, we would never do that.
Trabb's Boy
“If the producers had dug up Ted Geisel’s body and hung it from a tree, they couldn’t have desecrated the man more.”
– Ty Burr, Boston Globe
Just Some Fuckhead
@Punchy: I’m here for ya if ya need a hug. Lemme just tissue off.
inkadu
“It’s the kind of movie where a blooper reel would be redundant.”
Mike in NC
Two words that scream his career is over: Love Guru
Maybe he could try breaking into Canadian politics?
Brachiator
@br:
Despite a slew of bad reviews, Transformers is close to grossing $200 million, including $42 million over the holiday weekend.
On the other hand, this is a bit of a bad sign (from yahoo news): “Ticket sales for Revenge of the Fallen fell 61 percent from last weekend, which itself wasn’t quite as big as originally estimated.”
So it may be that the people who really, really, really wanted to see the movie have done so, and they don’t have a hot need to see it again and again.
I recall one review, maybe of Stallone’s Cliffhanger (1993) that went, They sometimes say that if you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ve seen the whole movie. But in this case, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen a better movie.
By the way, Stallone’s Demolition Man (1993) is kinda fun, and unexpectedly witty in parts (imagine a future world where Taco Bell is a five star restaurant).
This just in: Finland ends Estonia’s reign in wife-carrying
jl
@Brachiator: That is a big upset! Plucky little Estonia’s wife-carrying pride dashed by their boozer tourist bullies to the North. Could mean war.
At least it will get Palin and MJ off the news.
SGEW
I will never understand Finland – I’ve long since come to accept this. However, I had no idea that Estonia was as mind-blisteringly strange.
jl
For those who scoff, Emil Zatopek, legendary Czech long distance runner and multi-Olympic medalist used to train by running while carrying his wife. It worked until he got a little too old, when it ended his career after he got a bad hernia from it.
in edit: I think anyone who has to navigate the Finnish or Estonian languages has to think a little different from the rest of us.
LD50
@SGEW: Imagine a sibling of Finland with an overlay of 45 years of forced occupation/isolation by the Soviet Union.
jl
And Zatopec’s wife was an Olympic champion javelin thrower. I don’t ever remember seeing a picture of her, but probably not overly petite.
SGEW
@LD50: That is a . . . worrisome portrait.
jl
Having spent time in both Finland and Estonia, both are strange, but Estonians more funner, in their sly strange way. Estonians have the odd puckish humor of the Swedes, but in a more stand-offish way.
The most relaxed border agents I ever ran into were in Sweden and Estonia. As I was showing my passport first time I visited, the Estonian border dude laughed “Your first time, huh? We have the best beer, the prettiest countryside and the most beautiful women. You will love this place.”
hal
The Jim Carrey Grinch movie is one of the only films I have ever walked out of in my life. I wend with a friend of mine, and we both suddenly turned to each other and said “This sucks. Let’s go.” And we were both the type who had to be there well before the trailers to get a good seat.
Brachiator
@SGEW:
And not just the Finns and the Estonians: “Sonkajaervi village, located some 490 kilometres (302 miles) north of Helsinki, has in the past 14 years made its entertaining wife-carrying competition known around the world and this year competitors came from eight countries including Australia, Ireland and Czech Republic.”
jl — For those who scoff, Emil Zatopek, legendary Czech long distance runner and multi-Olympic medalist used to train by running while carrying his wife. It worked until he got a little too old, when it ended his career after he got a bad hernia from it.
My hat is off to anyone who can successfully negotiate this odd obstacle course. And the women who can still smile after going through the watercourse leg of the competition would kick Sarah Palin dead in her “I’m quittin'” behind.
As always, the YouTubes has some mighty clips from past competitions here and also here.
SGEW
May I just say that I am now officially worried about the Honduran situation? WTF. That was some weird showmanship, on both sides. And led to at least one death. And now it seems like nobody actually knows where Zelaya is, or is flying to now: reports are contradictory (El Salvador? Nicaragua?).
This thing just gets weirder, and makes the Governorship of Alaska look downright well managed: at least Palin appears to be managing a peaceful transition of power! (knock on wood)
Comrade Stuck
Just when we thought the GOP might be down for the count, it is looking like White Knights in Black Robes may be riding to the rescue.
From NYT’s Editorial yesterday.
Judicial activism Right Wing style. Money, the only thing left the Right has a lot of, may become their Ace in the Hole.
Zed
In general, the Onion’s AV Club has some great reviews, with their negative ones being usually pretty hilarious. But I would also point you to their recurring features My Year of Flops and I Watched This on Purpose. Both amuse me endlessly.
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Have ya ever considered: Just Some Fapper?
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
First off, congratulations!
A word of unsolicited advice, though — if she really has her heart set on a wedding-y wedding, you can bring up the idea of taking off to get married. You can even make your case. But don’t expend too much effort trying to talk her into it. It has to be something you BOTH want to do, or else you’ll be starting off your marriage with a big ol’ helping of resentment.
One thing that really helped us was each of us writing down our top three non-negotiable factors: the things we HAD to have at the wedding in order to feel good about the whole thing, with everything else just being bonus points. It really helps you set your priorities. I wanted a pretty location (no ugly-ass city hall room, thank you), the big white dress, and professional photographs. You guys might discover, after some talking, that there’s a compromise that will make you both happy. Anyway, if you need suggestions, advice, or translation services from Bride-ese to English, email me and I’ll be happy to help.
Kirk Spencer
@JenJen: yes, it happens. I suspect you don’t have to ask me how I know.
Crashman06
Congrats on popping the question, Punchy. I’ll be doing the same in a few months. Still not sure exactly what to do yet though…
Brick Oven Bill
Estonia is the land of oil shale. This is why their women are so pretty and the beer tastes so good. But our oil shale deposits are much larger and of higher quality. :)
…
Run Punchy run. Or congratulations.
jl
Oil shale, Estonai? I thought it was all just peat deposits. That is the Russian part of Estonia; tourists scared to go there. Except maybe the drunk Finns too smashed to find their way home. But kiss that part of the pretty countryside goodbye.
SGEW
Btw, Zelaya lands in Nicaragua (and not in El Salvador, as Honduran media reported). No harm, no foul.
Indylib
@Punchy: What kind of ring did you end up buying her? Inquiring nosy female types want to know.
jl
@Comrade Stuck: Corporate free speech! Free the oppressed corporations!
And embattled 5-4 conservative SCOTUS majority is launching a last ditch effort to hold off the 20th century. This our version of what is going on in Honduras.
Laura W
@Punchy: In what manner/location/context did you pop the question?
Other inquiring nosy female types want to know.
Comrade Stuck
@jl:
It really is a big deal what is being set up by the SCOTUS wingnuts. When I stumbled across the Times editorial, I couldn’t believe it had received so little attention in the blogosphere (or anywhere else), or maybe it has and I just missed it. A national nightmare is not to strong a word if it comes to pass this fall.
SGEW
I’m betting that SCOTUS is gonna punt in a weird direction on that one, hard (with a dissent full of gibberish by Thomas).
Also, did y’all realize that Greg Djerejian is posting again, and has been since June? Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things? I was checking Belgravia once every couple of months, and he would post something occasionally, but it looks like he’s starting to do post semi-regularly again. Huzzah!
His latest stuff is must-read, of course.
jl
@Comrade Stuck: Glenn Greenwald’s column got me to reading some of their opinions, even though I am not a lawyer. Glenn wrote that every citizen should read the damn things, whether lawyer or not.
So dammit, I did it. And in my non, lawyer opinion, Scalia, Thomas and Roberts are frauds. Their opinions trail off into yelling, weird slogans (we decide this on the prinicple of “Dignity and Majesty of the State!”), and frank pants shitting fear. So IMHO, they are BSers and I am also afraid for the country in their hands -especially if they get desperate as they realize turning things back to the 1870s may be out of reach.
Ondine Breck
@jl:
As a Physical Person (PP) I am deeply and truly resentful of Virtual Persons (VPs), corporate entities, taking over my Physical World. I understand there’s case law that’s led to this, but I feel like we’ve ended up in some very strange place. Can I sue for PP minority rights against the VPs?
Comrade Stuck
What it sounds like to me as a nonlawyer, goes well beyond being activist in this case. It looks they are being litigants themselves as the recent case about the Hillary ad did not mention the Austin Case of 100 years ago. Now maybe they are doing it just to make a super landmark decision in favor of campaign finance laws, to make things clearer. But does anyone really believe this bunch of wingers in black robes is going to do that? Overturning the Austin case would unravel 100 years of CF laws of every stripe that was based on it, local state and federal, and declare that money is equivalent to first amendment protection.
Maybe I’m wrong about this, and the BJ legal eagles please say if I am, but if not, it would put the country on a fast track to Oligarchy and instability.
Mike in NC
@ B.O.B.
Watch out for the armpit hair. Their vodka is quite good; haven’t tried the beer.
@ SGEW
Good to see Belgravia back up and running! Let’s see a piece on Lady Gaga (AKA Sarah Starbursts).
Punchy
@Indylib: I went with a 85 point radiant S1on a white gold band. Not too fancy, but damn expensive (wanted to do the full carat, until I saw the cost. WOW). I really wanted to get palladium, just so I could brag to my buddies how she could reduce a whole bucket of benzene to cyclohexane by using the ring, but thats the chemist-geek in me. And how often does one run across of a bucket of aromatics? Alas, Shane Co. lacked the Pd.
Cant say enough about how professional Shane Company was, and how incredibly low their prices were. HIGHLY recc’d, if anyone cares.
kommrade reproductive vigor
If they ever give awards for movie reviews, this one should win Best Lede:
Punchy
@Laura W: I just typed a huge response, only to lose it. So here’s the 5-second skinny: I wrapped a bunch of small gifts (it was her birthday the day before) in a big box, and the gifts were small labeled things like “destiny” (candy baby bottle, pacifier sucker), “hope” (lottery ticket), “sweetness” (gumball), etc. To add to the surprise, many of the small gifts were inside old jewelry and ring boxes, so by the time she’d opened 6 of them or so, she was completely convinced the whole theme was just a gag. Until she got to “love”, which had a ring box….and the actual ring.
I, of course, timed it all wrong and had a mouth full of lettuce in my hole at the very moment she opened it up, so the actual proposal was a bit tardy and involved small pieces of iceberg flying across the table….
Indylib
@Punchy: Oh, hell, that’s good!
Ring sounds beautiful and the proposal sounds memorable. I believe I understand why she keeps telling the story. Does she focus on the romance or the flying lettuce part?
asiangrrlMN
@Punchy: Punchy, that is a really thoughtful and sweet way to propose. Good for you! Don’t worry about the mouthful of lettuce. It just adds to the story’s charm.
Wile E. Quixote
@Comrade Stuck
It’s long, but worth it. My grandfather was a submariner in World War II and spent three years playing “Hide and go Kill” with the Imperial Japanese Navy and of all of the submarine movies he’s ever seen (and the man has seen them all) he says that Das Boot is the most realistic and does the best job capturing what it was like to be on a World War II era submarine.
Joe Lisboa
Congrats, Punchy. Echoing crashman, I’ll be proposing to my long-suffering and unbelievably patient (read: seven years) ladyfriend this fall and I’m at a total loss on how to proceed. I suppose it doesn’t help that my official professional title (and income) is “adjunct philosophy professor and/or indie musician and/or pro-bono lawyer,” but if you can pull that shite off with lettuce in your mouth, it gives the rest of us dudes hope. Again, congratulations, sir.
asiangrrlMN
P.S. Really gorgeous cats. Whose are they?
DougJ
My all time favorite David Letterman top ten list item may be, from the list of rejected titles for Dr. Seuss books, Horton Hires a Ho.
Cain
Congrats, Punchy on the acceptance of your proposal! :)
cain
Yelli
Hey everyone-These are my cats! Sorry to come into the discussion so late but I am an expat living in Germany now and don’t see these posts until the morning.
Their names are Shackleton and Mallory, after explorers. We used to live in the PNW and thought we would start Mt. climbing. (This obviously never happened although we do enjoy hiking)
Shackleton wears a bell because he was a stray and kills everything within sight. Mallory is the lazy one. I think she and Tunch might be related.
@inkadu – As far as the morning wood, I will have to ask my hubby about that one! Egads!
Death By Mosquito Truck
Punchy, you need to turn in yer mancard stat.
Neddie Jingo
Perhaps not particularly fascinatingly, yesterday was our eighteenth anniversary. My proposal was somewhat, shall we say, pragmatic.
Last night’s dinner, sans kids, was lovely.
Once, while I was engaged in an act of shameless and, I thought, solitary self-abuse, my cat leaped from a windowsill onto an undulating sheet and caused me several minutes of bemused reflection on the feline instinct.
I believe the cat had my own best interests at heart.
some guy
If you like scathing reviews, no one does it better than The Filthy Critic.
OniHanzo
I’ve always enjoyed the Spill.com movie review site. When asked to describe Frank Miller’s The Spirit movie, one reviewer nailed it best:
“It’s a fecal waterslide.”
Drowned Rat
A few years ago, our very snarky alternative weekly had a memorably scathing review which also can never be surpassed for brevity. The movie was Blow. The review, in its entirety:
s.
Sue
Where’d you get the kitty picture?